Lest we forget, they lied about all things, large and small.
This is from a 2003 WH presser but the old link to whitehouse.gov is no good now - I pulled it from DU archives.
Q Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, "Mission Accomplished." At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?
THE PRESIDENT: Nora, I think you ought to look at my speech. I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we've still got hard work to do, there's still more to be done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops.
The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way. But my statement was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase of the war for Iraq was over and there was a lot of dangerous work. And it's proved to be right, it is dangerous in Iraq. It's dangerous in Iraq because there are people who can't stand the thought of a free and peaceful Iraq. It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we're soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken by suiciders -- and suiciders who are willing to drive up to a Red Cross center, a center of international help and aid and comfort, and just kill.
They lied about the banner, the plane, the ship:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22502-2003May6?language=printerWhite House officials had said, both before and after Bush's landing in a Navy S-3B Viking jet, that he took the plane solely to avoid inconveniencing the sailors, who were returning home after a deployment of nearly 10 months. The officials said that Bush decided not to wait until the ship was in helicopter range to avoid delaying the troops' homecoming.
But instead of the carrier being hundreds of miles offshore, as aides had said it would be, the Lincoln was only about 30 miles from the coast when Bush made his "tail-hook" landing, in which the jet was stopped by cables on deck. Navy officers slowed and turned the ship when land became visible.
Elisabeth Bumiller tried to find out who ordered the banner. She asked the Navy if it was really their doing, as Bush claimed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/national/03LETT.htmlSoon enough, Commander Daniels called to say that one person in the meetings preparing for the ship's homecoming was Cmdr. Ron Horton, the executive officer of the Lincoln and the ship's second in command.
Commander Horton was too busy to come to the phone, Lt. Cmdr. Daniels said, but he recounted what he said Commander Horton had told him about a shipboard meeting in late April with officers of the Lincoln and members of the White House advance team. The team, including security, had boarded the ship in Hawaii around April 28 to make preparations for the president's speech — some 75 to 100 people strong.
"The White House said, `Is there anything we can do for you?' " Commander Daniels said. "Somebody in that meeting said, `You know, it would sure look good if we could have a banner that said `Mission Accomplished.' "
And who was that someone? "No one really remembers," Commander Daniels said.
One of the White House communications people in the meeting, Commander Daniels said, was Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer who oversaw the production of the sign. Mr. Sforza did not return telephone calls seeking comment last week.